As I mentioned in my last post here, I’m working on a road romance that opens in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of New Orleans. Since my heroine is a third or fourth generation New Orleans native, I’ve been reading up on the early history of the city to get a feel for her world and how it shaped her.
By sheer luck I stumbled across a book called The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans, by Lawrence N. Powell. It covers the history of the city from its founding through the Battle of New Orleans, and it’s full of lovely footnotes I’m mining for more detailed sources of what life was like when the Crescent City looked something like this:
To my vast surprise, I discovered that the demography and culture of 19th century New Orleans were impacted, and significantly so, by a part of history I know much better–the Peninsular War. You see, much of the Francophone population of 19th century New Orleans did not in fact descend from the original settlers, but from refugees from the Haitian Revolution in 1804. At first the refugees went to Cuba and were accepted there, since France and Spain were then allies. But when Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808 and put his brother Joseph on the throne, the French were no longer welcome in a Spanish possession like Cuba…so they fled to New Orleans, which had been in neutral American hands since 1803.
Who knows what other unexpected connections I’ll discover as I continue to explore New Orleans, the Natchez Trace, and the rest of 1815 America? Right now I’m just hoping to find a Louisiana cookbook from sometime close to my time period, so I’ll know what foods to make my heroine homesick for!
Because you can–and will–get that everywhere else, and I wish you much chocolate and flowers and smoochy stuff. But today I want to tell you about what I did last Saturday. It was a Regency Drag occasion at Riversdale House Museum where we had a historical whodunit event at which about thirty guests had to guess the instigator of the horrid event in the study with a poker.
From left to right, sitting, Mrs. Merry (with historically incorrect long underwear you can’t see because it was cold outside), our hostess Mrs. Rosalie Calvert (wearing an extremely lovely Indian silk gown), and Mrs. Lowndes (don’t let that demure exterior fool you). Standing, Mr. Foster the current English ambassador, our host Mr. George Calvert of Riversdale, Kitty the maid, and the wicked smuggling extortionist Col. Barclay (who made a lovely corpse).
I have no knowledge of the other participants’ underwear but by golly, don’t we look authentic! Most of the others were extremely well-informed and serious historical reenactors (I think I was given a line about “non-intercourse acts” as a test of my moral fiber. It refers to trade restrictions). We all played known historical characters who may or may not have committed murder.
Elizabeth Merry (attrib. Richard Cosgrove)
Mrs. Merry was the wife of the former English ambassador who became entangled with Aaron Burr and was sent home in disgrace.The Merrys did not have a happy time in the Federal City. They were shocked that Thomas Jefferson received Mr. Merry in his carpet slippers (that is, Jefferson wearing his own slippers) and Mrs. Merry was slighted when, at an official dinner in their honor, Jefferson made a serious breach of protocol in escorting another woman to the table. Mrs. Merry then began a boycott of official social events but became well known for her own hospitality.
According to Cokie Roberts in her book Ladies of Liberty, there was a rumor that Mrs. Merry, who came from a modest background, had been a barmaid at a Suffolk tavern. In a quest for upward mobility, she married the local squire, and as a rich widow, picked Anthony Merry as her next husband, a hot commodity in diplomatic circles. Napoleon’s nickname for Merry was Toujours Gai because of his dour disposition. And Mrs. Merry’s maiden name was Death. I bet she spent a lot of time correcting people on its pronunciation.
The evening was a lot of fun, pretty much like writing except you didn’t have to write anything down–but then you couldn’t go back and erase and rewrite–and while there was a temptation to go off on tangents, we had to remember to casually drop clues into the conversations.
So unless you participated in a historical whodunit recently and would like to share details, please tell me how you celebrate Valentine’s Day.
And the winner of Anne Gracie’s The Autumn Bride is….(drumroll)…
CrystalGB!!
Crystal, look for an email from Anne Gracie.
Thanks, everyone, for making Anne feel welcome!
The Riskies
riskies@yahoo.com
I’m a great fan of Downton Abbey and have faithfully watched each season. In fact, at this year’s Washington Romance Writers Retreat in April, I’m going to do a workshop on what Downton Abbey can teach us about writing Historical Romance. You’ll be hearing more on that later.
This week’s episode featured more on one of my favorite characters, Thomas, finely acted by Rob James-Collier. (Don’t worry, though. I won’t give any spoilers in case you haven’t seen it yet)
In season one, Thomas was a scheming footman who would manipulate anyone to put himself in a good light. He’d get the dirt on the other servants and use the information against them, if he thought it would serve his own ends. He had it in for Mr. Bates from the beginning, never missing an opportunity to make Bates look bad. He even put the moves on one of the handsome houseguests, the foreign royal who seduced Mary and dropped dead in her bed.
In other words, Thomas was a villain. Along with O’Brien, Lady Grantham’s ladies maid, Thomas was the character we were supposed to hate, the quintessential bad guy.
In season two, though, something changed. Thomas went from being a character I loved to hate to someone more complicated. By the end of the season he was one of my favorite characters and still is.
If you want to make a villain sympathetic, this is how to do it.
In season two it became clearer that Thomas was a lonely man who wanted better for himself and who really had nobody who cared about him and no opportunities to aspire to more than service in an country house. I suddenly understood why he connived and clawed his way in life. When he is duped in his profiteering scheme and he loses everything, he has to go back into service. By this time you know what a difficult thing that is for him.
In season two we saw a different side of Thomas from the smart-talking conniver. He went to war and was terribly traumatized by battle, so much so he lifted his hand out of the trenches and waits for it to be shot. That fear and desperation touched my heart.
Also in season two Thomas fell in love with an injured soldier who he tried to nurse back to health. His kindness and sympathy towards this man was unexpected, but showed that he, too, could have feelings for another person. When the soldier killed himself, Thomas was shattered. In season three he also breaks down into tears when Sybil dies, telling Anna, “There are few people in my life who’ve been kind to me. She was one of them.”
Now I know what makes Thomas who he is and I can see beyond his scheming facade. That is the trick to making a good villain. Show who he is, why he is the way he is, and show something of his humanity. If you do it right, you can even make the villain a character I can love.
Do you have a favorite villain? Why is he or she a favorite?
Are you watching Downton Abbey?
I’ll be selecting Anne Gracie’s winner at midnight tonight, so there’s still time to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of The Autumn Bride.
